Deeplinks Blog posts about File Sharing

Today’s sad news of the passing of Adam Yauch, the Beastie Boy’s MCA, caused us to take a moment to reflect on the impact that the Beastie Boys, and their seminal record Paul’s Boutique, had on remix culture.

On Friday, EFF went to court to argue that innocent Megaupload customers like Kyle Goodwin should be able to get their lost files back. We were particularly concerned because the government, which had originally seized the files and still apparently holds all of Megaupload's financial assets, had argued that it had no obligation to make sure the files of innocent Megaupload users were returned and, in fact, believed that they could be destroyed.

Does the government have a responsibility to protect innocent third parties from collateral damage when it seizes their property in the course of prosecuting alleged copyright infringement? That is the question a federal district court will consider next week in the latest skirmish in the legal battle between the U.S. government and Megaupload.

In the media firestorm surrounding the recent Megaupload takedown, there has been little lacking in the way of drama (police helicopters, midnight raids, safe rooms, shotguns, and inflatable tanks, for starters). The legal battles between the government and Megaupload are unlikely to end soon. In the meantime, however, many ordinary users of Megaupload’s services have been swept up in the government’s dragnet, and, as a consequence, have lost access to their own data.

The House Judiciary Committee will meet today for a hearing on the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). What could have been an opportunity for the committee to hear from a variety of stakeholders has devolved into a parade of pro-SOPA partisans. Scheduled to testify are representatives from the Register of Copyrights, Pfizer Global Security, the Motion Picture Association of America, the AFL-CIO, and Mastercard Worldwide—many of which helped to draft this legislation in the first place, and didn’t let anyone else into the room. The only scheduled witness in opposition to the bill is Katherine Oyama, policy counsel on copyright and trademark law for Google.

Whether you support or oppose the bill, there’s no question that it will affect a broad range of activities, which is one reason we’ve seen an extraordinary outcry of opposition since the bill was introduced.